Steve Miller wants to keep on rockin you

Steve Miller was a few minutes late in calling. He'd lost track of time, but he had a great excuse.

He'd been on the phone with guitar maker John Bolin, whose specialty is making lightweight replicas of vintage Gibsons and Fenders.

Featherweight guitars are a bit of a trade secret in the league of aging-but-still-rocking rockers on Bolin's client list -- Billy Gibbons, Pete Townsend and others. When you're in your 60s and playing two hours a night, it's no longer fun to be tethered to an 12-pound Les Paul.

"Everybody's looking for really lightweight guitars," Miller said in a phone interview. "You do this for 40 years, and you get a sore shoulder and sore neck and sore back."

Miller will do his best to mask the mileage that 40 years of playing and touring have put on his body and his band when they stop at the Cape Cod Melody Tent on Aug. 4 and 5. He'll sing his beer-drinking anthems with a couple thousand fans -- and their grandparents.

"Our audience ranges from 10 years old to 70. And people don't understand that until they come to see it," he said.

Miller fully acknowledges making populist pop. The kids love it because it's happy and they can sing it. The grownups love it because it's a memory of a high-school kegger (and, quite likely, other assorted illicit undertakings).

"We sort of get passed down from parents to kids to brothers to sisters," he said. "Our music is very positive and it's full of singing we're kind of like the Beach Boys. Kids especially really like to sing. They're singing 'The Joker,' and they're singing 'Rock'n Me,' they're singing 'Jet Airliner.'"

And there is no doubt: They will hear those songs at the Melody Tent.

Miller doesn't mind playing his eight-bazillion-copy-selling greatest hits record every night. The band hasn't even put out a new studio record in 15 years, so no need to suffer through "we're gonna do a new one right now."

"It doesn't become a chore. I don't feel bad because I gotta go play 'Fly Like an Eagle.' I look forward to that."

He has seen artists who resent their hits and try to spite their audiences. And he has seen them learn from their mistakes.

"Lesson No. 1: Be careful what you record, because you may have to play it all your life," Miller said. "Plan for success."

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